Halloween Blogstravaganza - Gummy Face

Gummy Faces - bouncing here and there and all over the places - high adventure that's beyond normal paces - they are the Gummy Faces.

There, now you have the Adventures of Gummi Bears theme song stuck in your head. Enjoy humming that tune for the next three days. Once it's in, you can't get it out!

Speaking of getting things out, Walmart has finally started to roll out their Halloween selection. Finally. It's almost the third week of September! Even the curmudgeons who complain about stores putting out their holiday displays earlier and earlier every year were starting to wonder what the hold up was.

Whereas Target traditionally creates a theme or a set of characters to incorporate into much of their Halloween fare, Walmart tends to go the more generic route. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing. I'm not entirely thrilled with Target's little monsters motif this year, so Walmart's broader approach to the season may actually be more appealing.

Gummy candies have become huge in recent years; both in popularity and sheer size. Last year there were giant gummy frogs filled with goo that you could dissect with an included scalpel. This year there are faces. The frog was probably more appealing.

The Gummy Face is about the size of my hand; significantly smaller than a normal human face. That's a little disappointing, especially considering the Gummy Face is made up of a thin layer of gummy candy and is not an entire solid head as you might expect.

The face also looks disproving. He does not agree with the choices you have made. Maybe that's more incentive to eat him. I also would have liked it if they had drawn some eyebrows on Mr. Gummy Face. A mustache would have been great, too, but that's more of a personal preference. A gummy version of Wooly Willy with Nerds-like candy for the hair instead of magnet balls sounds like a cracker jack idea to me.

Somebody get me the number for Willy Wonka!

I didn't think to look at the nutritional information on the back of the box, but I bet the serving size is one face and really, that makes up for any of Gummy Face's downfalls.

Magic and mystery - a part of their history - along with the secret of Gummy Face juice - their legend is growing -  they take pride in knowing - they'll fight for what's right - in whatever they do!

Halloween Blogstravaganza - Subliminal Pac-Man

Pac-Man, as we know him, was originally intended to be named Puck Man in the United States, after "paku-paku", the Japanese onomatopoeia for the sound made by opening and closing one's mouth. However, the game's creators were concerned that the name "Puck Man" would be too easily vandalized. (Source: Scott Pilgrim vs the World)

Despite appearances to contrary, this is not Pac-Man; but "Inflatable Runaway Ghosts" are not fooling anyone. These three ghosts might as well be wearing name tags that read Blinky, Pinky and Inky (Clyde not seen here), because there is no way to objectionably look at this box art and not associate the characters with Pac-Man.

Even the font they chose for the "trick or treat" banner looks similar to the blocky "game over" you inevitably see after losing your last life.

Actually, upon closer examination, nowhere does it mention that the Pac-o-lantern is even included with this set. If Walmart expects me to pay 50-dollars for three gumdrop shaped, Pac-imposter ghosts, then they have another think coming.

Epilogue: I wasn't sure about the idiom I chose for that last sentence, so I googled what, I thought, was the actual phrase; "they have another thing coming." Apparently the correct expression is think, not thing, which I think is stupid. I also thought it was "wise tales" instead of "wives' tales".

Normally I could care less, but--dammit, that's another one!